Re: OT: the euro & 01.01.02 (was NATLANG/FONT:)
| From: | Padraic Brown <agricola@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, December 21, 2001, 23:05 |
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Am 21.12.01, Tristan Alexander McLeay yscrifef:
> Eeks... you seem to have (had) a complicated currency structure...
Complicated? English L/s/d is complicated!
> but that
> still doesn't explain where `dime' comes from... Apparently, it comes from
> OF `disme' from `decima pars', a tenth part, but that doesn't explain how
> it came to be used to mean 10c. Was the word once more common? Was a tenth
> of a pound or a shilling called a dime?
A dime is the tenth part of a dollar. Just like the cent is the
hundredth part of a dollar. See, it's all metric.
There was no tenth part of a pound, until 1849 when the UK made
the first tentative baby steps towards decimalisation. Note that
the older (large sized) 10p coins are the same size and
composition as the old florin.
> Tristan
Padraic.
--
Bethes gwaz vaz ha leal.
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